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And when he almost took it in the neck on the second one, the tomahawk-chopping animals in Ratlanta were going wild like it was the greatest thing they ever saw. But what can you expect from a bunch of illiterate rednecks who throw beer bottles out onto the field?

And when he almost took it in the neck on the second one, the tomahawk-chopping animals in Ratlanta were going wild like it was the greatest thing they ever saw. But what can you expect from a bunch of illiterate rednecks who throw beer bottles out onto the field?

Well, at least we aren't throwing offensive fruit at the players or killing the guys who happen to wear hats with a different logo than our team's. Actually, BTW, Atlanta's literacy rate is quite high, and I would bet the Braves demographic is higher still.

Pretty good fit, actually. Roll over a defeated enemy. #### the bed when confronted.

Sherman was pretty clearly the best general of the Civil War.

You think it makes you a great general to throw away tens of thousands of lives in frontal assaults, like Grant did repeatedly? Hell, even Lee had his moments of abject stupidity, throwing lives away.

Sherman realized the defensive power of the rifled musket, and decided to march his enemies into submission. Classic indirect approach. Maneuver until they have to attack you, and then hand them their heads. He maneuvered Johnson all the way back to Atlanta, and then crushed Hood fighting on the defensive. He also destroyed the South's willingness to fight, with hardly any casualties on either side, during the "March to the Sea"/

The thing you most need to understand about Sherman is that he grew significantly in command. You can't look at early, scatterbrained & panicky Sherman and say "ha, what a crap general!" (Incidentally, for all of Sherman's negligence in the run-up to Shiloh -- which ought to be laid equally at the feet of Grant -- it shouldn't be forgotten that he held the line like a boss in the face of truly vicious onslaught and, along with Prentiss, basically saved the Union Army from destruction.) You have to look at the general he evolved into over time, with experience. I don't know if I would say Sherman was the BEST general of the Civil War (there are many who vie for that title, on both sides, and Sherman's in the mix), but he ranks near the top.

The thing you most need to understand about Sherman is that he grew significantly in command.

Yes. We need to remember that none of these guys (even the Army lifers) ever commanded more than a few hundred men in battle before the Civil War.

Sherman learned and adapted and became great, whereas Grant was great through Vicksburg, and then seemed to forget what got him the top-job in the first place. His campaign in Virginia, with the unimaginative frontal assaults, and resultant bloodbath, almost cost Lincoln the election, and made McClellan look like a genius in comparison.

You think it makes you a great general to throw away tens of thousands of lives in frontal assaults, like Grant did repeatedly?

Sigh. Can you at least read the historical records? Grant did not repeatedly throw away tens of thousands of lives. Where did you read this fiction anyway? Repeating it doesn't make it any less untrue, you know.

Sherman realized the defensive power of the rifled musket, and decided to march his enemies into submission.

Yes, while Grant conducted a frontal assault on Vicksburg directly across the Mississippi river and his entire command drowned.

Sigh. Can you at least read the historical records? Grant did not repeatedly throw away tens of thousands of lives. Where did you read this fiction anyway? Repeating it doesn't make it any less untrue, you know.

In the early summer of 1864, Grant sustained 60,000 casualties out of an initial strength of 100,000, and achieved nothing, and almost costing Lincoln the election.

Absent Sherman taking Atlanta, it is quite likely McLellan beats Lincoln, and accepts the South back into the Union with slavery still legal.

He then sustained another 42,000 casualties around Petersburg, again, achieving zero.

Don't give me the "but the Confederates couldn't take the losses" attrition nonsense. Any general who outnumbers his enemy close to 2:1, and sustains casualties at a 3:2 to 2:1 unfavorable ratio, has failed.

Just like Haig and Foch failed in WWI, even if their side eventually won. Haig should have been
hung for his incompetence.

Snapper, if you haven't already read it, I highly recommend a book called TheDonkeys by Alan Clark. The title comes from a statement supposedly made by german soldiers in WWI in regard to the British. The germans said that the British soldiers fought like lions . . . lions led by donkeys. You're too kind to the British general staff. They should have all been hung. Or better yet forced to take part in one of their insanely stupid attacks on well prepared german positions.

In the early summer of 1864, Grant sustained 60,000 casualties out of an initial strength of 100,000, and achieved nothing, and almost costing Lincoln the election.

Nothing, except for forcing Lee to retreat towards Petersburg and being unable to reinforce Hood (because Grant was putting such constant and relentless pressure on Lee) while his (Hood's) army was ground it mincemeat in the west.

Absent Sherman taking Atlanta, it is quite likely McLellan beats Lincoln, and accepts the South back into the Union with slavery still legal.

It was Grant who put Sherman in command and gave him his objectives. And I don't find "iffin" particularly useful historical analysis. It didn't happen that way, and a lot of the reason it didn't was because General-In-Chief Grant was beating the bejabbers out of the opposition.

He then sustained another 42,000 casualties around Petersburg, again, achieving zero.

Zero, except for maneuvering Lee into a siege that forced him to surrender his entire army a few months later and ended the war. You know, little stuff like that.

Yes, and after that, he never did it again.

He didn't have to. His objective was Atlanta, not Hood's army. Grant's objective was Lee's army. The two generals had different objectives. Grant was also opposed by a much more pugnacious opponent than Sherman was. Duh.

I said Grant was brilliant through 1863, then he failed, repeatedly.

Oh, so Grant also understood the lethality of rifled musketry- until 1864, then he just decided to say "Ah #### it. This maneuvering is too complicated. I'm just going to charge straight ahead." Sure.

Just like Haig and Foch failed in WWI, even if their side eventually won. Haig should have been
hung for his incompetence.

Umm, did you miss the part where Grant forced three separate opposing armies to surrender, two of them without a fight? Comparing Grant to Foch is like comparing Napoleon to McClellan. No exaggeration. Snapper, you need to stop reading "Lost Cause" revisionist histories.

And even if McClellan won election, there is no effin way the war was going to end by his "allowing" the South back in with slavery intact. Congress wouldn't have allowed it, the British and French would have withdrawn support and the South would thus have had no incentive to return. Where did you ever hear that fantasy anyway?

Zero, except for maneuvering Lee into a siege that forced him to surrender his entire army a few months later and ended the war. You know, little stuff like that.

Lee surrendered b/c Sherman was tearing through the Carolinas and was going to cut him off from all supplies.

He didn't have to. His objective was Atlanta, not Hood's army. Grant's objective was Lee's army. The two generals had different objectives. Grant was also opposed by a much more pugnacious opponent than Sherman was. Duh.

Which is a horrendous strategy. Targeting a well led army, in good defensive positions, through frontal assaults is madness, or butchery, take your pick. Great generals maneuver.

Nothing, except for forcing Lee to retreat towards Petersburg and being unable to reinforce Hood (because Grant was putting such constant and relentless pressure on Lee) while his (Hood's) army was ground it mincemeat in the west.

So what if Lee reinforced Hood? Grant outnumbered Lee 2 of 3 to 1 in the theatre. For every regiment Lee sent to Hood, Grant could have sent two to Sherman.

I was watching. It looked very bad. The first was s breaking pitch that bit way too much and hit the dirt about 2 feet outside of the plate. The second was a fastball that sailed so far behind Simmons that the ump assumed it wasn't close enough to be a message pitch. The third was also way behind Simmons (the catcher was barely able to get a bit of leather on it after lunging) but not so far as the previous pitch, and Strasburg was tossed. None of the three were even in the same area code as Simmons and it looked like Strasburg caught a temporary Steve Blass disease. Who know what he was really trying to do.

That's absurd. He did not. You had a situation where two aggressive generals were facing one another. There was going to be sanguinous fighting one way or the other. Would you prefer McClellan's approach, where he would maneuver and then withdraw at the first sign of something serious developing? McClellan was great at avoiding casualties, but he sucked as a general. And I don't know how you can say the entire campaign was a failure when it ended the war successfully in a year. Here, I'll say it again in case you missed it. Grant's Richmond campaign ended the war successfully in a year.

Lee surrendered b/c Sherman was tearing through the Carolinas and was going to cut him off from all supplies.

This is BS. Lee surrendered when Sherman was still in North Carolina. Lee had to surrender because he was surrounded, outgunned, outmaneuvered, out of food, most of his army either deserted or surrendered, the remaining starving and without supplies, and was getting its ass kicked.

Which is a horrendous strategy. Targeting a well led army, in good defensive positions, through frontal assaults is madness, or butchery, take your pick. Great generals maneuver.

Grant was trying to defeat a rebellion. You can't defeat a rebellion unless you defeat the rebels themselves, to force them to stop rebelling. Grant could have maneuvered around empty space all he wanted and it wasn't going to change a damned thing. The only strategic point to attack was Richmond, and no matter how much he maneuvered, Lee was always going to be between him and the city. Lee's army was stationed there. Their supplies were there. Their headquarters were there. What was Grant supposed to do, send Lee a note asking him to vacate Richmond for a few days so he (Grant) could invest it? That was the reality. To end the rebellion, Lee's army had to be defeated.

I can read casualty rolls.

Instead of the casualty rolls, why don't you take note of the outcome instead? The goal of a battle is not to see who has the least casualties. It's to achieve strategic objectives. To use a baseball analogy, you're trying to judge the winner of ballgame by which team had the most baserunners, rather than who scored the most runs.

I was watching. It looked very bad. The first was s breaking pitch that bit way too much and hit the dirt about 2 feet outside of the plate. The second was a fastball that sailed so far behind Simmons that the ump assumed it wasn't close enough to be a message pitch. The third was also way behind Simmons (the catcher was barely able to get a bit of leather on it after lunging) but not so far as the previous pitch, and Strasburg was tossed

That whole sequence was weird, and I'm not sure Strasburg should have been thrown out of the game. Were it not for the first curve, I'd be more willing to buy that he was throwing at Simmons. But to me, it looked like Strasburg just forgot how to pitch for a moment.

Grant is the greatest general in not just the Civil War but in all U.S. military history. In part not just because he understood strategy but because he understood how an army should operate in a democratic society. He didn't shirk responsibilities like Lee, who demurred when asked by Davis to lead men to the Western theater. Grant's concept of war governed George Marshall's vision of victory in WWII; that the key to victory defeating the enemy with direct action.
Honesty compels me to admit I am biased toward Grant as I wrote my dissertation on his foreign policy and essentially lived with him and Hamilton Fish for three years.

#27 The Wilderness wasn't a frontal assault. It was a meeting engagement. Spotsylvania started out as a meeting engagement. It did feature a couple of the most successful assaults on prepared positions (first Upton's -- which failed because of lack of support once he was counterattacked) and then the Mule Shoe (which pretty much destroyed the Stonewall division but ultimately failed because of poor performances at the corps level)

All criticisms of Cold Harbor are merited.

Petersburg was brilliantly planned but Butler and Smith snatched bloody stalemate from the jaws of victory.

Grant is the greatest general in not just the Civil War but in all U.S. military history.

He gets my vote.

As long as we have a Grant scholar in attendance:

Steve, do you think Grant's presidency was similarly unfairly tarred by revisionists like his war record was? It seems to me he had an enlightened race policy but was undone by political realities, and they used the scandals in his administration to condemn the entire presidency. Does Grant's presidency merit a reevaluation? Yes or no?

Grant was also opposed by a much more pugnacious opponent than Sherman was. Duh.

Indeed. Grants attempts to maneuver were generally met directly by Lee. (The sole exception being Petersburg. Beauregard -- with the assistance of Smith and Butler -- really saved his bacon there) Johnston consistently fell back to a new very strong point. Oh Johnston planned counterattacks on several occasions but Hood and in particular Polk simply weren't up to the job. Hardee was competent but that wasn't enough.

One of the keys was the disparity in forces. In general the Army of the Ohio was strong enough to fix Johnston while one of the other two armies (or both) maneuvered around whichever flank was expedient.

Of course Johnston was succeeded by Hood -- a huge gift to Sherman. We don't know how it would have played out with Johnston in command (though I'm betting an eventual successful withdrawal from Atlanta -- Johnston really was quite good at that) but Hood ended up throwing away enough of his army that Sherman could leave Thomas to deal with Hood while he marched on.

Finally it's important to not that Petersburg dragged on in part because Grant had the wisdom to give Sheridan (his most able subordinate) the resources to finally shut down the side-show in the Valley. At that point the war was over. It's worth nothing that when Lee finally broke out it was with fewer than 30,000 effectives.

snapper, Grant/Lincoln were working to the political reality -- the North had only so much tolerance for the war, had it dragged into 1866 the political will might have been exhausted.

I felt like Mrs. C on Happy Days calling you "Arthur" yesterday. :)

:-)

But, the North's intolerance for the War was largely caused by the bloodbaths of early 1864. If Grant wasn't taking hideous casualties, the public would have been much more tolerant.

Grant is the greatest general in not just the Civil War but in all U.S. military history. In part not just because he understood strategy but because he understood how an army should operate in a democratic society. He didn't shirk responsibilities like Lee, who demurred when asked by Davis to lead men to the Western theater. Grant's concept of war governed George Marshall's vision of victory in WWII; that the key to victory defeating the enemy with direct action.
Honesty compels me to admit I am biased toward Grant as I wrote my dissertation on his foreign policy and essentially lived with him and Hamilton Fish for three years.

Can't agree with this at all.

Defeating the enemy through direct action against the main army is the hall-mark of a mediocre general. Clauswitz was dead wrong. Frontal assaults and high casualties are also the surest way to lose support for a war in a democratic society. I also find attrition to be immoral as a theory of war.

Great generals defeat the enemy by maneuvering him into a position where he must make the costly assaults, or he is cut off from his base and must withdraw.

Great generals defeat the enemy by maneuvering him into a position where he must make the costly assaults, or he is cut off from his base and must withdraw.

OK, Snapper, Mr. armchair military genius. Explain to us all what Grant should have done instead. Explain to us how he was going to move 100,000 in secret around Lee's army. Where and when and how could he have maneuvered Lee into a position where Lee would have been forced to attack him at intolerable costs.

Well then, Grant's Vicksburg campaign is one of the greatest maneuver campaigns of all time. Napoleaon would be envious.

Yes, already stipulated that Grant was brilliant in the West. He was mediocre at best in the East.

Since you mention Napoleon, no one would call the Napoleon of 1812-15 a brilliant general. But his mediocrity makes up a much smaller fraction of his career than Grant's, and he obviously achieved much greater victories before mediocrity set it.

Steve, do you think Grant's presidency was similarly unfairly tarred by revisionists like his war record was? It seems to me he had an enlightened race policy but was undone by political realities, and they used the scandals in his administration to condemn the entire presidency. Does Grant's presidency merit a reevaluation? Yes or no?

That is a damn good question. Indeed, my dissertation adviser repeatedly pushed me to answer what was the bigger meaning of the issues I researched. In terms of Reconstruction, there is no doubt in my mind that Grant was sincere in his desire to protect the Republican party in the South, which meant protecting black voters. He went after the KKK with the same energy that he showed in pursuing Lee. In foreign policy, I argued that the Grant administration sought what would be later known as Dollar Diplomacy, that is to say he sought to promote U.S. trade as the #1 foreign policy goal. Remember, this is a time that Great Britain was still the largest trading partner of almost all the countries in the Americas. Grant and, most importantly here Fish, kept the United States out of the Cuban rebellion known as the Ten Years War (contrast that to McKinley and the Spanish American War).
Now, despite these considerable achievements, the problem with rating the Grant presidency higher is that the corruption within the administration is almost impossible to ignore. The best example I can offer from my own research is the attempt to buy the nation of Santo Domingo (the Dominican Republic). Grant bypassed the State Department when the corrupt Dominican president offered to sell his country and dispatched his chief of staff Orville Babcock (later accused of being part of the St. Louis Whiskey Ring). Babcock and the Dominican president, Baez, went around island nation, and invested heavily in property whose value was sure to skyrocket when U.S. annexation occurred. The annexation treaty was defeated in the Senate ultimately. the sad conclusion I came to was that the Grant administration was probably as corrupt as the Nixon White House. The only difference was that Grant himself was personally honest and did not benefit from it. Grant was a lousy judge of character once the war ended because he himself was honest and too trusting. A great man, a so-so president.

I also heartily second the recommendation that book to start with on the Civil War is James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom. I use it as my textbook when I teach the Civil War, but even more importantly, it introduced me to the concept of contingency, which has become my guiding historical philosophy.

And there you go. Snapper adopts a specific moral viewpoint, and then all the facts and evidence are required to bend to it.

No, that's an aside.

Attrition is a horrendous stratgey from a practical point of view. A general's first goal should always be to preserve his army; rendering your army ineffective is the fastest way to lose a war. And his first responsibility is to keep his men alive; then they'll fight for you. That's why Sherman's soldiers loved him; he made the enemy suffer rather than his men.

The counter example is WW1. The only reason the French had any chance of losing the, war after 1914, is they and the British threw their soldiers lives away to such an extent that the French army mutinied, an basically refused to attack.

Lee was an excellent general, fighting on the defense, on his home ground, with highly motivated troops -- and Grant beat him. Everything else is arm chair generaling and wishcasting.

So what? The Union was going to win eventually, barring a complete collapse of will. You don't overcome a 4:1 disadvantage in manpower and industry.

The goal of war isn't to "win". It's to achieve your political objectives with minimum casualties, and cost. Grant did a piss poor job of this.

Just like at the end of WW2 the US obsession with "beating the Germans" caused us to squander much of the fruits of victory by letting the Soviets waltz into to the Balkans, Austria, Czechoslovakia and far too much of Germany, while Eisenhower insisted on the unnecessary Anvil landings, rather than movement into the Blakans, and foolishly worried about the "Alpine Redoubt", rather than taking Prague and Vienna.

Just like at the end of WW2 the US obsession with "beating the Germans" caused us to squander much of the fruits of victory by letting the Soviets waltz into to the Balkans, Austria, Czechoslovakia and far too much of Germany, while Eisenhower insisted on the unnecessary Anvil landings, rather than movement into the Blakans, and foolishly worried about the "Alpine Redoubt", rather than taking Prague and Vienna.

That is about as wrong as can be. Because political leaders had decided that Berlin and Prague were going to be in the Soviet zone of occupation, Eisenhower saw no need to expend lives for territory that would be have be given up anyway. And your dismissal of Anvil completely overlooks the fact that it allowed the capture of French ports that helped with the logistics crunch. And there is a very good reason why the United States wanted to end the war against Germany quickly. It was called the Pacific War. No one knew until the summer of 1945 that the Atomic bomb would be work. The war against Japan looked like it was going to require an invasion of the home islands. The United States was already experiencing manpower shortages by early 1945. Ending the war against Germany quickly was far more important than seizing Berlin.

I'm going to be taking the Pro Grant side here. He began with the main objective of hitting Lee hard, keeping him occupied and allowing Sherman time to penetrate the South's exposed underbelly and the Navy to blockade and conquer Southern ports-essentially the Anaconda Plan four years later. This he did.
The Wilderness was a straight on fight, but after that, almost every major battle until Cold Harbor (Which everyone concedes to be an error)started with Grant disengaging, attempting to flank Lee and move South (You know, pretty much exactly what Sherman was doing), and Lee using tighter interior lines to beat Grant to the point of battle-see Spotsylvania as a classic example of this.
This kept the pressure on Lee, something no other general had done. Grant never fully disengaged.He just kept coming and coming. He understood that the had the larger army, more supplies,more recruits, more money and that he could wear Lee down.That he had the will to do so, especially in the light of public outcry, is one of the facts that differentiated him from prior Union generals.
And any claim that Lee surrendered because of Sherman's presence in the Carolina's is utterly fallacious. Sheridan cut Lee's army in 1/2 at Saylers Creek, just destroyed them, (Lee upon arriving at the battle said something to the extent of, "My God, has the army dissolved?", then drove them like dogs until the suurrender.
Grant beat Lee by being more aggressive and in the end out-marching him. Look at the Appomatox Campaign as an example of this.
In terms of larger strategy, he was the anvil and Sherman the hammer. Grant played his part well.

That is about as wrong as can be. Because political leaders had decided that Berlin and Prague were going to be in the Soviet zone of occupation, Eisenhower saw no need to expend lives for territory that would be have be given up anyway. And your dismissal of Anvil completely overlooks the fact that it allowed the capture of French ports that helped with the logistics crunch. And there is a very good reason why the United States wanted to end the war against Germany quickly. It was called the Pacific War. No one knew until the summer of 1945 that the Atomic bomb would be work. The war against Japan looked like it was going to require an invasion of the home islands. The United States was already experiencing manpower shortages by early 1945. Ending the war against Germany quickly was far more important than seizing Berlin.

This is about as wrong as it can be. Read the 3rd part of the Manchester biography of Churchill.

The agreement at Tehran and Yalta were incredibly vague, set up no set "zones", and Stalin was already violating those agreement well before Berlin fell. There was zero reason not to race to the Elbe (and to keep all of Germany west of it), Prague and Vienna, and the British were urging us to do just that.

An obsession with ending the war quickly to fight Japan was idiocy. Where was Japan going? They were starving on their island due to the sub campaign. There was no particular reason to rush an invasion of Japan.

As for manpower shortages, that was all completely of our own making, given our decision to over-expand the Navy and Air Force, and the excessively padded supply "tail" we always insist on.

The fact is the US was being led in 1945 by a dying man who was incapable of dealing with the issues at hand; thinking he could charm Stalin into playing nice.

No one was looking after Grand Strategy and shaping the post war world except Churchill; and he was rapidly losing influence.

In fact American Grand Strategy was flawed since at least 1942. The Unconditional Surrender demands (sprung on Churchill w/o consultation) was a disaster, seriously handicapping the anti-Hitler elements in Germany, and making the Japanese even more resolute. Then there was the US obsession with dismantling colonial empires. Our Gov't acted like Britain and France were a bigger post-war threat than the USSR.

This is about as wrong as it can be. Read the 3rd part of the Manchester biography of Churchill.

The agreement at Tehran and Yalta were incredibly vague, set up no set "zones", and Stalin was already violating those agreement well before Berlin fell. There was zero reason not to race to the Elbe (and to keep all of Germany west of it), Prague and Vienna, and the British were urging us to do just that.

An obsession with ending the war quickly to fight Japan was idiocy. Where was Japan going? They were starving on their island due to the sub campaign. There was no particular reason to rush an invasion of Japan.

As for manpower shortages, that was all completely of our own making, given our decision to over-expand the Navy and Air Force, and the excessively padded supply "tail" we always insist on.

The fact is the US was being led in 1945 by a dying man who was incapable of dealing with the issues at hand; thinking he could charm Stalin into playing nice.

No one was looking after Grand Strategy and shaping the post war world except Churchill; and he was rapidly losing influence.

In fact American Grand Strategy was flawed since at least 1942. The Unconditional Surrender demands (sprung on Churchill w/o consultation) was a disaster, seriously handicapping the anti-Hitler elements in Germany, and making the Japanese even more resolute. Then there was the US obsession with dismantling colonial empires. Our Gov't acted like Britain and France were a bigger post-war threat than the USSR.
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I have read Manchester's volumes on Churchill, and while well written, they are hardly the most authoritative source on Tehran and Yalta. S.M. Plokhy's Yalta: The Price of Peaceis the first place to start.
To criticize the American way of war is ludicrous.We are a democracy. Democracies abhor high casualties. Therefore whenever possible, we substitute overwhelming firepower to save lives. Perhaps the German soldier was better than the average American soldier. Doesn't matter, they lost.
And your final paragraph ignore world realities. European colonialism was dying and unpopular with the American people. Its natural therefore that U.S. policy was to promote decolonization. A better argument can be made that when we ignore decolonization like in French Indochina, it hurts our interests more.
It seems to me that you basing most of your arguments from a truly hideous book, Diane West's American Betrayal. Every one of them has long been dismissed by diplomatic historians.

If you can read ANV casualty rolls please let the scholars of the war know where you found them. Livermore spent a lot of time on the subject and the best he could do for numbers and losses from the period was -- not less than.

Lee started censoring those numbers long before the situation got truly dire.

To criticize the American way of war is ludicrous.We are a democracy. Democracies abhor high casualties.

How can you type that and defend Grant's performance in 1864?

It seems to me that you basing most of your arguments from a truly hideous book, Diane West's American Betrayal. Every one of them has long been dismissed by diplomatic historians.

Never read it.

The US diplomatic performance in the late-WW2 period, early posty-war period was abysmal. We sold out Poland and Czechoslovakia, kissed Stalin's ass continuously, sent 1 million people back to death and the Gulag (Operation Keelhaul), and demobilized so rapidly that we had no leverage in Eastern Europe, gave incredibly stupid advice to Chiang - leading to his defeat, and almost got beat by a 3rd World Army in Korea.

This is whitewashed by "diplomatic historians" b/c they cover up for the sainted FDR and Truman, who screwed the pooch repeatedly in dealing with Stalin, Mao etc.

Just offhand because my 20th century books are at my office, I can name several prominent books that are quite critical of Roosevelt and/or Truman. Arnold Offner's "Another Such Victory: President Truman and the Cold War, 1945-1953" is quite a withering study of the Truman presidency. Frank Costigliola's "Roosevelt's Lost Alliances: How Personal Politics Helped Start the Cold War" is another critical look as he argues Truman's errors led to the Cold War. Melvyn Leffler's "A Preponderance of Power: National Security, the Truman Administration, and the Cold War" is another critical look at Truman. To claim a whitewash shows a total lack of knowledge of the literature and historiography.

You never replied to my request. What opportunities for flanking Lee are you aware of, 150 years later, that Grant somehow missed in 1864? Tell us all how you would have avoided Grant's "butchery"?

Let me explain for the tactical challenges Grant was presented with, deploying a large army in 1864 in capturing Richmond and defeating Lee's army.

First, he had a narrow corridor in which to operate. Grant was restricted in his movements by the natural features of the terrain, which was the coastal plain of central Virginia. The Shenandoah mountains flanked his right, varying in distance from the eastern waters by anywhere from 20 to 80 miles. That is an extremely narrow field of operations, even by nineteenth century standards. Secondarily, this wasn't any ordinary coastal plain. It was horizontally dissected by several large rivers: the Potomac, the Rappahannock, the Massaponi, the Pamunckey, the York and the James- each of which provided a formidable natural barrier for any advancing army. Aside from the risk of getting attacked while in the middle of a large river fording, these rivers also cut a large portion of the coastal plain that was Grant's AOO into a set of stacked peninsulas, which also provide large tactical problems, as was witnessed later when Butler's entire command was trapped and immobilized on one of them by a much smaller Confederate force. Finally, Grant was operating in hostile territory, where nearly every resident could be relied upon to provide Lee with real-time intelligence of Grant's movements and deployments of any appreciable size or significance.

Richmond in 1864 had several lifelines. It had the nearby rivers, especially the James, that supplies could be moved in over water, and it had two remaining rail lines, the Danville line coming from the west from Lynchburg through Farmville that provided goods from western and southwestern VA and the Shenandoah , and the Weldon and Petersburg line from the south via Petersburg that could bring goods from southern VA and the Carolinas.

So Grant could either try to flank right, in which he would almost certainly run out of room before achieving his objective, once his army bumped into the Shenandoah mountains, or he could flank right, and have to ford river after river, all the while fearing a counterattack while in the middle of getting across. Lee knew that flanking to the right was highly unpromising for Grant, as there were few good roads to advance his army, there was little of strategic value over that route and it would have tended to draw him away from Richmond rather than towards it. So Lee knew that Grant had to try flanking left, and Grant knew that Lee knew. So Grant did the best that he could with the hand that he was dealt. He would probe right, then attack Lee left, hoping for a weak spot that he could exploit, all the while cutting off the river traffic to Richmond as he moved south. The first few times the attacks ended in stalemate. But Grant kept on coming and Lee kept losing men and real estate and river and rail assets he could ill afford to lose. Eventually, Grant DID successfully flank Lee, with an excellent crossing of the James river to come up upon Lee's rear from Petersburg. Lee was able to stave off the disaster with a fair bit of luck thrown in, but all it did was delay the inevitable. Grant was able to cut all river traffic and the Weldon and Petersburg railroad, leaving Richmond with a single lifeline west, the Danville line. Things got so bad for Lee at Petersburg that his soldiers were surrendering or deserting at a rate of about 100-200 a day.

A few months later, even that line became endangered and Lee was forced out of Richmond and inevitable surrender. In essence, Grant strangled Lee's army by attacking his supply lines, forcing him into a fruitless siege, then forcing him into open country where he had no prepared fortifications in which to protect his dwindling and starving army. It was brilliant generalship under very difficult of military circumstances.

Finally, by giving Lee an honorable surrender, he forestalled the possibility of Lee's army fragmenting and going to ground to wage a guerrilla-style insurgency. Grant was indeed the greatest of American generals.

So I ask you again, Snapper. Given the natural and manmade barriers that existed in the area around Richmond in 1864, how would you have succeeded where US Grant failed, if you had command of his army at that time? Where and when and how would you have maneuvered that would have led to the achievement of strategic objectives that Grant failed to take advantage of? Please explain.

We sold out Poland and Czechoslovakia

I'm assuming Snapper is unaware that the Soviets had 10 million armed and battle-hardened personnel at their disposal, most in eastern or central Europe, in 1945. Otherwise, this statement is completely insane.

The US diplomatic performance in the late-WW2 period, early posty-war period was abysmal. We sold out Poland and Czechoslovakia, kissed Stalin's ass continuously, sent 1 million people back to death and the Gulag (Operation Keelhaul), and demobilized so rapidly that we had no leverage in Eastern Europe, gave incredibly stupid advice to Chiang - leading to his defeat, and almost got beat by a 3rd World Army in Korea.

This is whitewashed by "diplomatic historians" b/c they cover up for the sainted FDR and Truman, who screwed the pooch repeatedly in dealing with Stalin, Mao etc.

So how much enthusiasm do you think there would have been for U.S. military intervention in Poland in 1945, in Czechoslovakia in 1948, or in China in 1949? Or do you suppose that demobilization was something foisted upon an unwilling Congress and public by Owen Lattimore and Alger Hiss? Are you aware that there were riots by soldiers in overseas American military bases in early 1946 demanding to be sent home?

And who would have been our allies if we'd decided to intervene in Eastern Europe and China? The demobilized and divided Germans? The French? The British Labor government? ####### Francisco Franco?

The U.S. of 1945-47 wasn't the U.S. of the late 50's and early 60's, with bipartisan support for military intervention and easy acquiescence to the Pentagon's wish list. It was a country that had just been through nearly 4 years of brutal overseas combat and wanted nothing more than to get the hell home and let the rest of the world fend for itself. The idea that we could have intervened to block the establishment of satellite states in central and Eastern Europe, let alone China, in the face of this overwhelming public and congressional sentiment is one of those delusions that's on the level of thinking that we could have "won" the war in Vietnam if we'd only stuck it out and ignored the resulting casualties. It's a mentality suitable for video wargaming, but not to the real world of 1945.

I'm assuming Snapper is unaware that the Soviets had 10 million armed and battle-hardened personnel at their disposal, most in eastern or central Europe, in 1945. Otherwise, this statement is completely insane.

It's insane on a number of levels, but Snapper is consistent here. He genuinely believes that taking on the Soviets would have been a good idea.

And since he never took me up on my request to provide with a tactical plan that Grant should have adopted rather than the one that ended in victory, I think it's pretty safe to say that snapper was talking through his posterior about the maneuver thing too.

So how much enthusiasm do you think there would have been for U.S. military intervention in Poland in 1945, in Czechoslovakia in 1948, or in China in 1949? Or do you suppose that demobilization was something foisted upon an unwilling Congress and public by Owen Lattimore and Alger Hiss? Are you aware that there were riots by soldiers in overseas American military bases in early 1946 demanding to be sent home?

And who would have been our allies if we'd decided to intervene in Eastern Europe and China? The demobilized and divided Germans? The French? The British Labor government? ####### Francisco Franco?

They didn't need to fight the Soviets, just grab as much land as you can in 1945 before the Soviets got there, as Churchill and Allenby wanted to. The Soviets weren't going to attack us to get west of the Elbe, or to take Prague. Churchill has to beg to get enough ships to land 10,000 troops in Greece and keep the Communists from taking that too.

I'm assuming Snapper is unaware that the Soviets had 10 million armed and battle-hardened personnel at their disposal, most in eastern or central Europe, in 1945. Otherwise, this statement is completely insane.

And if they had attacked us, the US and UK Armies of 1945 would have chopped them up like the Germans did in 1941. With complete air supremacy by the Allies, the Soviets had no hope of challenging them. Can you imagine what thousands of B-17, B-24, and Lancaster bombers would have done to the typical massed Soviet formations?

The 10 million personnel were "battle-hardened" in the sense that they were exhausted; the Soviets were basically out of manpower and were dredging up 40-50 y.o.'s to fill out the ranks. They still weren't very good soldiers. The frickin Volksturm and Hitler Youth were inflicting >3:1 casualty ratios on them, long after the US and UK had achieved qualitative parity.

It's insane on a number of levels, but Snapper is consistent here. He genuinely believes that taking on the Soviets would have been a good idea.

If by "taking on" you mean standing up to them while we still had the most powerful military in the world, and the A-Bomb coming, yes.

Stalin was a monster and a bully, but not a fool. He would have happily settled for "only" Poland, the Balkans, Hungary and Germany east of the Elbe.

He cared about a buffer on his western border, he had that in Poland and Romania (that we couldn't undo in '45). He basically gave Finland a pass, and gave Austria back to the West, b/c they weren't strategic.

So he believes the same thing as Joseph McCarthy, William Jenner and other loathsome McCarthyites of the 50s? Perhaps he wants to accuse General George Marshall of being a communist next.

Go F*** yourself. Engaging in ad hominem slurs is a clear sign of a total inability to engage in real debate.

Truman believed the same damn thing (despite making some big errors, at least he recognized the evil of the Soviet Union, unlike FDR, and had guts).

If "taking them on" in 1948, over Berlin, when we were almost completely demobilized made sense, then doing so in 1945 when we had the best military in the world, and theirs was as strong or stronger, clearly did.

And if they had attacked us, the US and UK Armies of 1945 would have chopped them up like the Germans did in 1941.

Umm, you're not serious with this are you? Is this some sort of troll you're playing on us? Please advise.

Do you realize what happened at the end of 1941 to the Germans, right? And do you really think that the Soviet army that was sitting under the Brandenburg Gate in 1945 was the same one that got sneak attacked in 1940? Really? The quality of the soldiers and the tanks and the equipment and the leadership was the same in 1945 as in 1941? Are you really saying that?

They didn't need to fight the Soviets, just grab as much land as you can in 1945 before the Soviets got there, as Churchill and Allenby wanted to.

And you also realize that the Soviets occupied Poland and Czechoslovakia before we ever got there, right? And if Stalin saw the western allies establish the principle of first come, first serve, then he would have jumped on board with that and rolled over a lot of western Germany, the Balkans, Denmark, Austria and northern Italy before American or British troops could get there? You realize that, right? And you can kiss Berlin goodbye, right? And it would have been us reneging on an agreement, not them, right? You do realize that, right? And what that would have done to our credibility in any future negotiations, correct? That we would have given Stalin a very solid, ironclad reason to not believe a word we said in any treaty or negotiation and do whatever he wanted wherever his troops were located because that's the principle we were guided by as well, right? You do realize that, right, snapper?

Seriously, snapper, you come off as completely clueless when it comes to discussing balance of power, military practicalities and diplomatic issues. What you're saying is that the US and Britain had absolute power at the end of WWII and the Soviets had none. That is really, really clueless.

Go F*** yourself. Engaging in ad hominem slurs is a clear sign of a total inability to engage in real debate.

Well, set an example and engage then. Tell me the pathway that was clear for Grant in 1864 that he failed to exploit. Stop avoiding the question. You're wimping out. You made an assertion, then doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on it and now you're running and hiding. Put up or shut up.

Well, set an example and engage then. Tell me the pathway that was clear for Grant in 1864 that he failed to exploit. Stop avoiding the question. You're wimping out. You made an assertion, then doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on it and now you're running and hiding. Put up or shut up.

Honestly, I usually have you on ignore, so I didn't see this question.

Send large forces down the Shenandoah Valley earlier. Send more forces into the Virginia Peninsula. Land an army below Richmond.

Grant had multiple of the forces Lee had. No reason to confront him directly. Leave enough forces in front of him to fix him, and unleash the rest on his rear to destroy his supply base/cut his supply lines.

And you also realize that the Soviets occupied Poland and Czechoslovakia before we ever got there, right? And if Stalin saw the western allies establish the principle of first come, first serve, then he would have jumped on board with that and rolled over a lot of western Germany, the Balkans, Denmark, Austria and northern Italy before American or British troops could get there? You realize that, right? And you can kiss Berlin goodbye, right? And it would have been us reneging on an agreement, not them, right? You do realize that, right? And what that would have done to our credibility in any future negotiations, correct? That we would have given Stalin a very solid, ironclad reason to not believe a word we said in any treaty or negotiation and do whatever he wanted wherever his troops were located because that's the principle we were guided by as well, right? You do realize that, right, snapper?

Seriously, snapper, you come off as completely clueless when it comes to discussing balance of power, military practicalities and diplomatic issues. What you're saying is that the US and Britain had absolute power at the end of WWII and the Soviets had none. That is really, really clueless.

That's wrong on every count. The Soviets moved west as fast as they possibly could, and there was still a chance to meet them near Berlin in '45, and reach Prague and Vienna first in '45. They only stayed out of Denmark b/c Monty beat they to the isthmus. The Soviets announced their intentions when they murdereded the representatives of the London Poles when they went to negotiate with the Soviet puppets in Lublin, and refused Allied reps access to Poland. The Soviets didn't hold back due to any agreements. They practiced first come first serve.

There were no treaties signed at Tehran or Yalta; nothing was ratified by the Senate. No agreements were public. Reneging meant nothing, it cost Stalin nothing. In fact, the agreed up dividing line was the Elbe, and we gave the Soviets more than that.

I'm saying nothing of the sort that the US had absolute power. I'm not saying we should have or could have taken back Poland/Romania/Bulgaria/Hungary.

All I'm saying is we had rough parity of power before the A-bomb (and a clear edge thereafter) and there was no reason to blithely hand millions of people over to Stalin's tyranny, and weaken our strategic position when they should have known the Soviets would become an enemy.

The Rooseveltian fantasies of the UN, and postwar cooperation with the Soviets were the pipe-dream of a dying man, who was incapable of exercising his office. The British knew it, but the US kept kissing Stalin's posterior.

A force moving down the valley would be vulnerable to ambush, and it would have to use one or more of the passes to get east of the mountains, where they could be easily blocked by a smaller force. And there would be no option for evasion or maneuver except by retreating straight back up towards Washington. Finally, deploying the AotP in the valley would open an avenue north for Lee to threaten Washington. Remember, Lee had shorter lines of march. Fail #1.

Send more forces into the Virginia Peninsula

To do what? Occupy the peninsula? What good would that do? To use it as an avenue to threaten Richmond? McClellan tried that with miserable results. Lee could have sealed off the peninsula (remember, shorter lines of march?) with a much smaller force, and there would be no way to flank because Grant would be trapped on both sides by a wall of water and would have to either withdraw amphibiously or conduct a full frontal assault. Haven't you heard of Butler's peninsula fiasco? And we already know how much you don't like frontal assaults. Fail #2.

Land an army below Richmond.

That's what Grant did. Why do you think he crossed the James? To get beneath Richmond and threaten the rail line.

And you couldn't just "land an army below Richmond". You would have had to do so in a way that didn't present opportunities for a counterattack north (again, shorter lines of march). Hunter's army in the Shenandoah wasn't of sufficient size or strength to resist a robust attack on Washington by itself. Fail #3.